i’ve started a blog entry several times but have given up because it sounded lame. my life is boring.

rob sent me his college essay yesterday and it is quite simply some of the best writing i have ever read. i realize that i may be biased. but honestly, it’s amazing. he wrote it in iraq and it’s a very honest, intense account of how he feels about war, god, etc. helped me understand him a bit more i think, at least in terms of the army (since if i don’t understand him now after 5 years we’re probably screwed lol). i’m so proud of him for writing it and for being such a great person. i love you darling.

anyway school is almost finished. i have one more paper to do for my philosophy class, which i began today but will finish tomorrow (it’s due on tuesday). the last two days i have spent doing absolutely nothing. i bought “harry potter and the order of the phoenix” on dvd, which was okay, not great because they hardly followed the book at all. but it was decent. i think with books like harry potter you just have to go all out and do the 3 hour movie instead of trying to cram it all into 2 hours.

on wednesday i fly to syracuse, very excited about that. then only a couple days later my darling boy is flying in to begin our 35-day leave together. 🙂 we are going to florida to spend new year’s with his mother and we’ll come back to beloit on the 13th or so, so i can begin my final semester. 35 days seems way too good to be true…it’ll be by far the longest consecutive period we will have ever spent together in the past 5 years of our relationship.

it’s hard to believe that a year ago today i was waiting for him to call, trying to finish my finals but unable to focus because he hadn’t called in weeks. and trying to forget that he wasn’t going to be with me for christmas or our 4-year anniversary. this year i get him for both, and i couldn’t be happier. 🙂

i just watched a special on putin’s russia called “czar putin.” very interesting but really quite frightening. he has these camps for “putin youth” where teenagers swim, sail, etc. and also get “a good dose of political indoctrination.” they showed all these young people with red flags all chanting things about putin. anyway it was really interesting.

had more psycho girlfriend time today. rob’s at a movie, which i hate. i don’t know why i hate it but i always have. i think it’s because going to movies is the stuff WE should be doing together, and yet i’ve had to wait day in, day out for the past 3 1/2 years until it’s even a remote possibility. so i keep calling and apologizing for freaking out and asking for validation. sadly, i need validation. i wish i didn’t. i mean he’s shown me time and again that he loves me and that we’re for real, and that i’m not getting rid of him any time soon with my crazy behavior. but still. i sit here alone and miss him, and want to know that i’m still the most important person in his life. silly and pathetic.

i talked to him yesterday about engagement and we kind of got some of those issues out of the way. he says that i just need to wait, but he gave me good reasons as to why he’s waited up to now so i feel a lot better about it. i don’t like things to be left unresolved.

here is a russian poem from world war II that my russian professor showed me today. we sort of translated it but please forgive if it doesn’t sound 100% coherent in english. in russian it rhymes, obviously…this translation is a rhyming english version. but this is the caitlin and olga version.

“Wait for me”
Wait for me, and I will return.
Just wait awhile,
Wait, when yellow rains
Bring sadness
Wait, when the snow is sweeping,
Wait, when it is warm
Wait, when others don’t wait,
Yesterday having forgotten.
Wait, when from a faraway place,
Letters don’t come,
Wait, when all those who wait together
Are sick of waiting.

Wait for me, and I will return
Do not wish good
Upon those who know by heart
That it’s already time to forget.
Let the son and mother believe
That I am no longer,
Let friends grow tired of waiting
They will sit by the fire
They will drink bitter wine
In memory of my soul…
Wait. Do not be in a hurry
to drink with them.

Wait for me, and I will return
Out of spite to death.
Those who didn’t wait for me,
Let them say, “He is lucky.”
It is impossible for them to understand, having not waited,
How in the midst of fire
With your waiting
You saved me
How I survived, only you and I
Will know-
You simply were able to wait
Like no one else.

well rob is at work right now and i am sitting in the hotel room by myself, pretty sad because i am set to leave in about 5 hours or so. but i’m trying to be strong…as you can see from the ticker above i have less than a month until i see him again, which, if you are in a military relationship, you can recognize as a relatively small bit of time.

but i’m not looking forward to sitting on a plane from anchorage to las vegas for 5 hours, or landing in chicago at 5:30 am and then getting back in time to sit through classes. i don’t want to say goodbye to my boy, a word that has been said much too often between us in the past 3 1/2 years. being with him has been amazing; it is as if i never said goodbye, as if we have been together this entire time.

but as usual, our visit must come to a close. i am trying to hold myself together but it’s hard when all i want is to wrap my arms around him and never let go. today we were in the shower and i said, “if we go to heaven i hope it’s this, just one long eternal shower together…or just lying in bed.” he said he preferred the idea of lying in bed for eternity.

it’s already starting…rob has been back in alaska for not even a week yet and already i’m getting all psychotic. he was going out to eat last night and said that he might be an hour late in calling (usually he calls at 7 pm his time–10 pm my time–because that’s when his free cell time starts) and i got scared that he’d rather be with those guys than talk to me. which is absurd, i know. i used to do it a lot when he was in alaska before the deployment. part of it is that i don’t think he realizes how late 11 or 12 can be for me…8 or 9 his time isn’t that bad so he doesn’t really think about it. so i get all crazy and demand validation. well, not “demand” so much as “whine for.”

i called him and asked for validation. he laughed and said of course he loves me, and of course he’d rather be with me than with army guys, and soon i won’t have to share him with anyone. i feel better but i still want to be with him.

it’s crazy being able to call him…i haven’t had the ability to call him in about 13 months and now all of a sudden whenever i feel like hearing his voice i can call and 8 times out of 10 talk to him. the first night he had his phone we talked for 3 1/2 hours…the second night 2 1/2 hours and the third night 1 1/2 hours. hopefully tonight we’ll talk for awhile but it’s possible he’ll be sleepy and will want to go to bed.

we had a long talk about the deployment and the effect it had on both of us. he told me all the stories that he didn’t want to tell me while he was in iraq for fear that it would completely ruin my psyche. turns out he was, as always, completely right. essentially, my boyfriend should be dead. he had the reputation as being the guy that should be dead. if certain things had been different, he would be gone. he believes that the little stuffed raccoon i gave him (i had it when i was a kid while i was sick) is what saved him. he wants to get a tattoo depicting the raccoon as his protector. i’m just so happy he’s okay.

i’m going to visit him next thursday (thanksgiving). i’ll only be there for 4 1/2 days which kind of sucks, but i’ll see him again less than a month afterward for 5 weeks. another girlfriend is flying into alaska tomorrow and is staying until the following monday…i’m jealous because she’ll be there for so long, but her boyfriend isn’t going to get the full 5 weeks of winter leave and he’ll be in the army for another 2 years or so, so i shouldn’t let it bother me.

it’s amazing how differently my life is shaping up to be in comparison with my college-aged friends. rob and i were talking today about how set we’ll be, both financially and relationship-wise. our plan right now is to move to farmington and to find somewhere to live, then i’ll get a job and he’ll start school. we’ll both have cars, we should be able to find an apartment that’s cheap, and we’ll be together. just shows me that all the pain, suffering, and waiting actually will pay off. i can’t wait.

so my boy leaves the middle east very soon, and i couldn’t be happier. except maybe if i knew i was going to see him as soon as he got back to the base. but just having him in the states will be good…no more worrying to the same extent, no more checking out http://www.icasualties.org/ to see if anyone from his region was killed…man, i’m almost getting nostalgic.

sunday made a 13-month deployment, and i can’t believe that it’s almost over. i have no idea where in the hell that time went. and i wonder if i could’ve possibly taken several years off of my life with all the worrying and intense emotion. i hope he doesn’t have to do it again, but if he did, i know we’d make it. but it seems now like the idea of our lives together isn’t so distant and unachievable. it’s actually going to happen…one year from now, i will be living with him in an apartment somewhere in maine, deliriously happy every day to wake up to his smiling face and crushed to have to leave him for the day. disgustingly, sickeningly in love. i can’t wait.

a few weeks ago i said to him, “let’s walk through a typical weekend when we live together.” and we sat there for a bit talking about all the things we’d do…going shopping together, lying around and watching mst3k and other movies, taking naps, decorating our apartment…it just all sounded way too good to be true. i still feel like something has to come between us and the life we plan to lead together, because i’ve spent so long saying, “only __ more years to get through,” and taking each day at a time. trying to put on a happy face when i didn’t feel very happy, and forcing myself to do things to keep my mind off of missing him. there are times when i’ve asked myself if i’ve missed out on any college experiences because of my boy, and undoubtedly there are some who think i have. when it comes to relationships in general, though, i am a bit of a fatalist…interestingly this doesn’t really carry over to other parts of my life. but with my relationship i think that all things have happened as they should. rob joined the army and it was a necessary evil…we have become stronger and stronger for having been apart and i think it was a bit of a test to show us how deep the love we have for each other is. him being in the army and us being apart has stopped me from doubting things so much and has fostered a kind of independence. so in my mind, this WAS all part of my college experience. and honestly i think i did a damn good job with it all.

sigh. the other day i met with my journalism advisor who asked for copies of some pieces i wrote for a class i took with him in spring ’06. he said he wanted to use them as examples for his class next semester, which was pretty cool, and then he emailed me saying i should try to get them published because “they deserve to see print.” that’s my ego-booster for the day. 🙂

for some reason people often come to me with their relationship issues. i still haven’t quite figured out why this is. i’ve had two good friends come to me repeatedly with problems in their relationships and later tell me i should be a relationship therapist.

i feel bad writing this because i don’t want to sound like i’m being immodest or conceited…it’s just something interesting that i felt like writing about.

i guess i don’t really understand why these people enjoy my advice except that i’m very common-sensical in my reactions to their problems. i’m lucky enough to not have to deal with bullshit in my relationship, so i encourage others not to give or take bullshit. in my mind i guess i’m very practical. if the relationship doesn’t make you happy, it won’t. it’s as simple as that. if you’re trying to fill a void in yourself with a relationship, i think you’re doomed to have problems because you are expecting another person, who has voids in his or her own life, to fill the void in your life. people aren’t perfect, and when we try to get another person to complete us that person is almost inevitably doomed to fail. i think a relationship should be a glorious addition to life, rather than a substitute for something else that is missing, like self-respect or self-esteem.

i don’t know why i’m writing this, i just find it interesting the way that human beings deal with their relationships. people will throw aside all horrible aspects of a person because they so desperately want to be happy…and how can you blame them? i think we’re all guilty of it at one time or another. love truly is blind in that sense. it just makes me sad when people deal with repeated abuse (emotional, physical and/or mental) because they feel like the relationship they have is all they’re ever going to have.

you have to love yourself first before you can love someone else.

i’m very lucky to have a boy who was willing to understand that. i started our relationship doubting that we’d last, doubting that he’d actually stick by me. but he did. he refused to back down even when i was at my worst. but because he handled me at my worst, he’s also seen me at my best. few people in my life can say they’ve handled both…really it’s just my boy and my family. lots of people have seen me at my worst and have left, because it was too much trouble. the people who stick around are the ones who mean something…and my boy has repeatedly proved that he means more than i can say. i am so lucky.